Republican Party elephant makes first appearance

Cartoonist Thomas Nast depicts the Republican Party as an elephant in a cartoon in Harper’s Weekly this date in 1874.

An updated version of the cartoon elephant

And, just so Democrats don’t feel left out, here are past and present versions of the Democratic Party symbol. The origins of the Democratic donkey can be traced to the 1828 presidential campaign of Andrew Jackson. During that race, opponents of Jackson called him a jackass.